Wolfire Throws a Lifeline to Counterfeit Lugaru Customers

[Flying Dagger]

Props to the company for their conduct I guess, but personally I don't rate the game in the slightest.

Played it for about 20 minutes, exitted, uninstalled.

But each to their own.

 

[RvLeshrac]

So let me get this straight, some asshole steals his code, sells it for cheaper and costs Wolfire a shitload of sales.

So Wolfire's response is to offer everyone who bought the stolen version a real copy for free?

Holy shit, this is insane, I might buy a copy just to support his behavior.

No, the code wasn't stolen. The code was given away for free. The *assets* were stolen (art, sound, music, text).

If they'd released a game exactly like Lugaru, but with different characters and audio, it would be a legal move, if dickish.

The code was published, not given away, there is a difference.

Without specifically stating that your code is free to use for any purpose (which he did not do) means he holds full copyright of his creation.

Just because it was published doesn't mean it wasn't stolen, that's like saying it's not stealing to take someone's cell phone if it's "just sitting on that table in full view of everyone"

The code is GPL, which means they can do anything they want with it as long as the resulting code is also released under the GPL. It can be sold or not sold as the new coders see fit (iTunes/GPL arguments notwithstanding).

The assets, however, are not simply GPL, they're restricted.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Lugaru-goes-open-source

 

[Danpascooch]

You're entirely entitled to your opinion. And we're entitled to think that your opinion indicates you're a self-entitled ass, and tell you as much.

As much as I'd love to get into some childish insult-ridden quote-fest [see danpascooch's posts] about how your opinion indicates you evaluate games far to high, and how moronic it is that you consider my opinion of the value of a specific game to mean I'm somehow "self-entitled"...I don't want to get another probation for flaming...despite your post being just that. Do grow up.

---

In some cases it's unambiguous, but I don't think your post is one of those cases, sorry. I don't see any indication in your post that the quotation marks are meant as emphasis rather than scare quotes. And the use of quotation marks for emphasis is still rare enough than in an ambiguous case, people will tend to read them as scare quotes by default.

Their loss then, this conversation is getting slightly ridiculous now; I've explained why I posted using quotation marks, I've stated I'm going to continue doing so in the future and I've explained that I now understand why it was mis-interpreted; why continue to force the issue?

---

You're saying the analogy is bad because it doesn't match the situation exactly?

Nope, I'm saying the analogy is bad because it has nothing to do with the situation and is completely mis-representing the point.

Perhaps you should look up what an analogy is, it's a comparison to a similar scenario

But the analogy you provided is not comparable, in fact if anything your analogy made the situation seem much worse than it was.

My point being that regardless of price, it's not alright to steal something, enhance it a bit, and sell it for less, the use of punctuation and quotation marks in your post combined with the general malice toward the original developer was a clear implication that you felt people were being screwed over by the developer and that the fake version didn't deserve the criticism it was getting.

Ok, again this conversation is getting slightly moronic now, I've explained my points, I've explained why I stated what I stated - yet still you want to argue over the semantics of the post rather than the actual details? I'm not going to continue a childish conversation over a point I wasn't making because you mis-interpreted my post and over-reacted accordingly.

Anyway, you saying "I have the right to _______" is totally irrelevant, of course you have that right. Nobody is coming into your house and trying to take your keyboard away or silence you, we are just all saying we think your opinion is ass-backwards, nobody is violating your "rights" so stop acting like you're defending your right to free speech or something, you're just trying to deflect warranted criticism of a flawed viewpoint. If you think your opinion was warranted, defend it with evidence and interpretation, rights don't come into play here unless someone tries to violate them and nobody has violated anyone's rights. We're just talking here, so that defense isn't going to cut it.

Ok, this is getting boring now, are you acting as though you understand nothing about the situation, or internet forum posting in general, on purpose? This paragraph is incredibly stupid when put into context.

"we are just all saying we think your opinion is ass-backwards,"

"What's that? You think someone is selling a game to high? YOUR OPINION IS WRONG!!! BURN THE WITCH!! How dare you state that! - We're going to claim you have no right to state that...then back-peddle and say you do [in the above quoted paragraph] but that your opinion is wrong. We're not going to support our claim that your claim the game isn't worth the money with evidence related to the game [something I would have done if anyone had actually challenged me on that point in a more intelligent manner] but just simply state you're wrong!"

"You may dislike the price, but that's their choice."

"Wow, who died and made you the arbiter of what games are worth?"

"First of all, they should be allowed to charge what they want, let the market decide if it's worth it."

All examples of quotes with the above attitude.

It's interesting how you think it's valid to talk about how you have rights just because people disagree with you. Is disagreeing with you violating your rights? I hope that's not what your implying, god I hope not.

Claiming I'm "wrong" without any supporting evidence, implying I'm not allowed to state an opinion [see the post by Andy Chalk] and other unpleasantness all imply that the people posting on this thread feel that holding an opinion outside the norm. is "wrong", the difference being they don't actually try to argue with that opinion they, like you, just state it' s wrong - as though a games value is a fact.

I purposely removed some of your paragraphs from this quote because they completely mis-represented the points I was making, speculated on what I was saying...

[for example the laughable section in which you claimed I might be claiming mis-interpretation because everyone disagreed with me...if I held the point of view you seem to think I do I doubt I'd care if people disagreed with me...not that I care anyway],

...or were pure flame-bait. If you're going to continue to mis-quote me on purpose [an example being the last two paragraphs of this post] I'd rather we end this conversation now because your style of debate is both childish and crude.

For someone who seems to enjoy altering what I said you seem pretty arrogant, I never said your opinion WAS wrong, I said we THINK your opinion is crazy, there is a major difference you want to ignore in order to pretend I said something I didn't say. The difference is if I said your opinion was wrong that means I think your opinion is provably false, which is impossible as it would violate the definition of an opinion. What I said was we THINK your opinion is crazy meaning we have an opinion that directly and radically contradicts yours and we don't agree with you. So stop saying I said your opinion was wrong, or that we are violating your rights to free speech here, as all we did was disagree with you. Disagreeing with you is not violating your rights, to claim so is narcissism on an epic scale.

Also, don't use what Andy Chalk said when in a debate with me as if it's something I stated, because (and I understand you might have overlooked this) I'm a separate entity from Andy Chalk, we do not share the same brain, nor are joined at the hip.

Here are the things the analogy has similar to the situation:

1.) Something was stolen
2.) Stolen item was enhanced
3.) Stolen item was improved
4.) Stolen item was resold at reduced price

Those are all similarities that you ignored when you said it has "NOTHING" to do with the situation, I don't know what else to say to you except you're wrong, wrong on the most basic of levels in this regard, those four things above are what it had to do with the situation. Look up the definition of an analogy or something, it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

There is only one thing I agree with in your post, and that is that this discussion is becoming moronic, it's impossible to have a civilized discussion when you are willing to twist my words and tell me I said things I never said, or say that something I said contradicted something Andy Chalk said as if we both share a common consciousness and I am contradicting myself.

I probably should request that you stop twisting my words, but I'll settle for you not being arrogant at the SAME TIME that you're pretending I said something I didn't say.

Also, looking at the original issue which was the quotation you claimed you were using for emphasis, here is an article on how to convey emphasis in text:

Italics Gives light emphasis. Use for subtle stressing of words.

Underline More insistent. Works well for emphasis of a complete phrase. Some people only use italic and bold, in which case the difference will cause attention.

Bold Is clearly visible when you first look at the whole page. Can create tension as they read towards it. This can be useful if done deliberately.

size Bigger fonts stand out more and small fonts recede. But beware of reducing readability by mixing font sizes too much.

punctuation! In particular the exclamation mark, gives a strong emphasis. Use sparingly. Be very careful when using multiple marks!!! It can be interpreted as either enthusiasm or attempted manipulation.

UPPERCASE Is the written equivalent of shouting. Avoid where possible, including use in headings.

Color There are many colors you can use. Brighter colors and those towards the red end of the spectrum stand out more. Blues and dark colors are more subtle. A neat usage is in headings (which often include the key message).
COMBINATIONS And you can combine any of the above, shouting in a deafening way.

Nowhere does it say quotation marks, you can see the full article at http://changingminds.org/techniques/language/modifying_meaning/emphasis_writing.htm

Hopefully this will avoid you creating misunderstandings by improper grammar in the future or at least help you avoid being so cavalier about blaming everyone else for misinterpretation due to your own mistake.

 

[Danpascooch]

You're entirely entitled to your opinion. And we're entitled to think that your opinion indicates you're a self-entitled ass, and tell you as much.

As much as I'd love to get into some childish insult-ridden quote-fest [see danpascooch's posts] about how your opinion indicates you evaluate games far to high, and how moronic it is that you consider my opinion of the value of a specific game to mean I'm somehow "self-entitled"...I don't want to get another probation for flaming...despite your post being just that. Do grow up.

---

In some cases it's unambiguous, but I don't think your post is one of those cases, sorry. I don't see any indication in your post that the quotation marks are meant as emphasis rather than scare quotes. And the use of quotation marks for emphasis is still rare enough than in an ambiguous case, people will tend to read them as scare quotes by default.

Their loss then, this conversation is getting slightly ridiculous now; I've explained why I posted using quotation marks, I've stated I'm going to continue doing so in the future and I've explained that I now understand why it was mis-interpreted; why continue to force the issue?

---

You're saying the analogy is bad because it doesn't match the situation exactly?

Nope, I'm saying the analogy is bad because it has nothing to do with the situation and is completely mis-representing the point.

Perhaps you should look up what an analogy is, it's a comparison to a similar scenario

But the analogy you provided is not comparable, in fact if anything your analogy made the situation seem much worse than it was.

My point being that regardless of price, it's not alright to steal something, enhance it a bit, and sell it for less, the use of punctuation and quotation marks in your post combined with the general malice toward the original developer was a clear implication that you felt people were being screwed over by the developer and that the fake version didn't deserve the criticism it was getting.

Ok, again this conversation is getting slightly moronic now, I've explained my points, I've explained why I stated what I stated - yet still you want to argue over the semantics of the post rather than the actual details? I'm not going to continue a childish conversation over a point I wasn't making because you mis-interpreted my post and over-reacted accordingly.

Anyway, you saying "I have the right to _______" is totally irrelevant, of course you have that right. Nobody is coming into your house and trying to take your keyboard away or silence you, we are just all saying we think your opinion is ass-backwards, nobody is violating your "rights" so stop acting like you're defending your right to free speech or something, you're just trying to deflect warranted criticism of a flawed viewpoint. If you think your opinion was warranted, defend it with evidence and interpretation, rights don't come into play here unless someone tries to violate them and nobody has violated anyone's rights. We're just talking here, so that defense isn't going to cut it.

Ok, this is getting boring now, are you acting as though you understand nothing about the situation, or internet forum posting in general, on purpose? This paragraph is incredibly stupid when put into context.

"we are just all saying we think your opinion is ass-backwards,"

"What's that? You think someone is selling a game to high? YOUR OPINION IS WRONG!!! BURN THE WITCH!! How dare you state that! - We're going to claim you have no right to state that...then back-peddle and say you do [in the above quoted paragraph] but that your opinion is wrong. We're not going to support our claim that your claim the game isn't worth the money with evidence related to the game [something I would have done if anyone had actually challenged me on that point in a more intelligent manner] but just simply state you're wrong!"

"You may dislike the price, but that's their choice."

"Wow, who died and made you the arbiter of what games are worth?"

"First of all, they should be allowed to charge what they want, let the market decide if it's worth it."

All examples of quotes with the above attitude.

It's interesting how you think it's valid to talk about how you have rights just because people disagree with you. Is disagreeing with you violating your rights? I hope that's not what your implying, god I hope not.

Claiming I'm "wrong" without any supporting evidence, implying I'm not allowed to state an opinion [see the post by Andy Chalk] and other unpleasantness all imply that the people posting on this thread feel that holding an opinion outside the norm. is "wrong", the difference being they don't actually try to argue with that opinion they, like you, just state it' s wrong - as though a games value is a fact.

I purposely removed some of your paragraphs from this quote because they completely mis-represented the points I was making, speculated on what I was saying...

[for example the laughable section in which you claimed I might be claiming mis-interpretation because everyone disagreed with me...if I held the point of view you seem to think I do I doubt I'd care if people disagreed with me...not that I care anyway],

...or were pure flame-bait. If you're going to continue to mis-quote me on purpose [an example being the last two paragraphs of this post] I'd rather we end this conversation now because your style of debate is both childish and crude.

Consider this an addendum to my previous post:

Just wanted to add that you claim I keep misquoting you, when I ALWAYS quote your full posts while you omit paragraphs and rip statements out of context as if you're paid $1 every time you arbitrarily slice away a piece of my argument in order to confuse my points.

How exactly am I misquoting you?

(See what I did there, bold for emphasis, using quotation marks would have made ABSOLUTELY NO EFFING SENSE)

 

[TheDreadPirateMatt]

Sometimes they are used that way, but it's not correct. Or at least, there are many people who don't use quotation marks that way and will therefore misunderstand you. Like danpascooch did. If you want to emphasise a word, it's better to use italics.

It's incorrect sure, but it looks better than italics and ultimately has the same effect - the usage is also becoming more common-place. The context of the quotes should have been adequate for people to understand the underline point of the comment; semantics shouldn't be important.

So the meaning (semantics) is not important to the understanding? That word you are using. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I disagree about it looking better than italics; I also misunderstood OP's comment based on the "scare quotes". As an alternative to italics, the generally accepted convention is *emphasised* (particularly when using plain text). Placing things in "scare quotes" implies a meaning different to the actual text.